Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase





2021 | |

Unifi: Connecting 198,000 buyers & sellers during Ramadan-Raya

Advertiser: Telekom Malaysia
Brand: unifi
Creative Agency: Grey Malaysia
Credits: -

12_SILVER_EC1_UNIFI REC

Objective & Challenge
In March 2020, Malaysians started preparing for April’s RamadanRaya. For over 100,000 Ramadan traders across the country, it is the most lucrative occasion because the profits earned during the month are enough to sustain businesses for the rest of the year1. However, on 18th March, to contain the spread of COVID19, the government announced a Movement Control Order (MCO) that included a ban on Ramadan bazaars and the closure of all nonessential businesses. Our challenge: In a drastic situation which required drastic measures, how could unifi become the bridge between consumers (buyers) and micro seller, social sellers and cottage industries to keep the economy alive during RamadanRaya. We soon found out that an important core of Ramadan would be missing. To celebrants, the hunt for the perfect buka puasa delicacies, the ideal baju Raya, and festive décor, would all be taken away by MCO. As for businesses that were unable to operate, they’d incur an estimated 70%* loss in income.

Insight & Strategy
Firstly, we sought to understand what would change for Muslims during a pandemic affected RamadanRaya: Small businesses and petty traders needed visibility to drive demand and grow. Small businesses are knowledgeable about their craft, but struggle when it comes to marketing themselves. 76% of small businesses felt the most important way to grow their business was to increase their digital presence.1 and they had the bare minimum of WhatsApp and social media as a means to transact with customers. However, unlike their big business counterparts, small businesses were not digital savvy to promote their business, let alone set up a new channel for sales. Muslim consumers: Families separated; traditions interrupted: Lockdown resulted in families being separated. Which meant traditions that shape the spirit of the season would have to be paused. Mosque Closures: Without the mosque or their community, Muslim consumers would need to find alternatives to keep their faith strong and to connect to God, as an individual. Therefore, there would be no more spiritual guidance from the congregation physically, which would lead to a greater feeling of isolation. A simpler RamadanRaya: No more massive iftar feast, no more family buka puasa, no more sedondon Raya. The tension: Celebrants were left feeling overwhelmed with uncertainty and frustration without knowing how to deal with the unfamiliarity of the occasion Our solution: Being true to unifi’s purpose as a technology and connectivity enabler, we needed to inspire isolated individuals and help SMEs make the best of lockdown. So, we created 2 solutions to ensure that #RamadanTetapRamadanRayaTetapRaya (despite challenges, the spirit of RamadanRaya will always remain): 1) SME & Petty Traders: We created an ‘online marketplace’, bringing buyers and sellers together to help local businesses gain visibility and grow. 2) Consumers: We transformed unifi from a ‘broadband provider’ to a ‘virtual content platform’ to help isolated individuals connect with the essence of RamadanRaya.

Execution
For SME and Petty Traders, we created a marketplace: cari@unifi The first step was to leverage on unifi customers base by connecting 2.5 million Malaysians with businesses who sell products during RamadanRaya. The agency recommended and created cari@unifi: A platform conceptualized from drawing board to launch within 2weeks prior to Ramadan. From inception, we decided to create a new platform from scratch, rather than an off the shelf solution. So, we brought together our agency team of experts, which included website developers, UI/UX designers, and an eCommerce strategist to build a marketplace that could accommodate multiple sellers. Cari@unifi, materialized into an SME finder/ecatalogue that connected consumers and businesses for RamadanRaya essentials. This far transcended the usual, cold “catalogue” type approach (i.e. YellowPages), as we created a vibrant community of homegrown sellers and homebound buyers. Why is cari@unifi different from all other ecommerce platforms? a) We provided offline to online migration support Since we created cari@unifi from scratch, we sourced for SMEs and petty traders across 6 Raya essential categories (food/fashion/home & living/health & beauty/hobbies/arts & crafts) and onboarded them directly to our platform. We provided technical guidance to handhold SMEs throughout the online migration process and created simple educational steps to enable transactions through their social platforms (i.e. Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp). We also curated engaging, entertaining content weekly (e.g. advice on choosing the perfect baju raya or a guide to best place to find raya kuih) and played matchmaker by connecting customers to sellers by interest and geolocation. b) We provided visibility and exposure at no costs We promoted cari@unifi to consumers and drove traffic to the site. As for the SMEs, we provided advertising support. We got SMEs to submit their inspiring business stories, in their preferred dialect, and weekly winners were entitled to use unifi’s FacebookLive channel, unified and AstroAwani to promote their products at NO cost. Two grand prize winners were then selected and featured on AstroAwani for a ‘live’ interview on air. For consumers, we developed a virtual content platform a) We created a community. We amplified the spirit of RamadanRaya throughout the festive period by curating engaging content twice daily to drive lead generation for cari@unifi sellers. These Virtual Sessions were anchored by 20 popular influencers from media (RadinAmar), entertainment (DianaDanielle), music (SamBunkface), and religion (Mawi) who kept up the festive spirit despite pandemic challenges. It all added up to a vibrant, interactive, and authentic community that gave a big voice to small businesses.

Effectiveness
Media’s impacts on: 1. SMES
• SME acquisition: The agency team acquired 2000 listings on cari@unifi • unifi’s SME customer acquisition growth rate increased by 17% in two months 2. Consumers
• The content platform drove 211,693 visitors to cari@unifi, of whom 75% were new. 3. unifi business
• Organic sales: 13,600 new plans sold (unifi RM59 SME mobile plan), 11% higher than our KPI.
• Achieved a Media ROI of 3.17 based on a spend of RM1.1M, with a cost savings of RM2.5M
• KOL postings throughout the unifi RamadanRaya Campaign generated 829K views, 3.4x more views then initially planned
• CostPerCompletedView (CPCV) for video assets was RM0.06, 88% lower than the benchmark (RM0.50). 4. unfi brand We received excellent PR coverage (media value of RM1.5M) from various media, e.g. from Astro Awani, plus testimonials from grateful SME owners.